[
4]
uncle.
Meanwhile,
Mr. Curtis pursued his education in medicine, and served as a surgeon in the Revolutionary army.
1
At the end of the war he established himself as a physician in the south part of
Boston, and with fair promise of success; but in 1784, when thirty-two years old, he died of an acute fever, leaving his widow with four children, the oldest of whom was only six years old, and without property, except a very good house in
Essex, then
Auchmuty, Street.
Mrs. Curtis, resuming her former occupation, opened in her own house a school for girls, which she found no difficulty in filling.
She went on with her work for several years, having among her pupils the daughters of some of the best families in town.
She always said that she liked the occupation, and certainly continued it, when it was no longer necessary, after her marriage with
Mr. Ticknor, which took place May 1, 1790.
The children by her first marriage were Eliza, who married
William H. Woodward, a respectable lawyer in
Hanover, N. H., and the defendant in the memorable case of Dartmouth College
vs.
Woodward;
Benjamin, a captain of a merchant ship lost at sea, who was the father of the two eminent members of the bar,
Benjamin Robbins Curtis and
George Ticknor Curtis; Harriet, who died at the age of twenty-two; and Augustus, who was lost at sea, on a northern voyage, at the age of eighteen.
Mr. Ticknor was the only child of the second marriage.
William Ticknor, father of Elisha, was a farmer, residing in
Lebanon, N. H. He lived to a great age, dying in 1822, the year after his son.
We give here some recollections of him, and of his own early life, dictated by
Mr. Ticknor in the leisure of his last peaceful years.